Samuel Smiles

"Progress however, of the best kind, is comparatively slow. Great results cannot be achieved at once and we must be satisfied to advance in life as we walk, step by step."

"Practical wisdom is only to be learned in the school of experience. Precepts and instruction are useful so far as they go, but, without the discipline of real life, they remain of the nature of theory only."

"The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom."

"We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery."

"It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success they much oftener succeed through failures. Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done."

"The very greatest things - great thoughts, discoveries, inventions - have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty."